Secane woman who provided handgun to felon has sentence amended to include weekday supervision

MEDIA COURTHOUSE — Judge James Nilon on Tuesday tweaked a sentence he had imposed last week upon a Secane woman convicted of providing a convicted felon with a handgun.

Rosemary Epright, 33, of the 800 block of Quaint Street, was originally sentenced to 11-22 months, which would be served over 60 weekends at the Delaware County prison, for a total 120 days, with the remainder of the minimum balance on electronic home monitoring. She was also sentenced to three years of consecutive probation.

But Nilon said Assistant District Attorney Matt Ryan had brought to his attention that the sentence did not impose any kind of supervision over Epright during weekdays between the initial 60 weekends.

To correct the oversight, Nilon changed the sentence to one of intermediate punishment that includes a probationary element during the period of weekend incarceration.

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“It’s not going to change the effect, it’s still going to be essentially a two-year sentence with three years of probation,” said Nilon. “The reason we did this is because under the sentence I imposed originally, if you did something bad during the week while you’re serving your 60 consecutive weekends, we couldn’t (prosecute) you (for a probation violation).”

Defense attorney John Kusturiss had no objection.

Epright, who has already served one weekend, was convicted by a jury in December on a single count of illegally transferring a handgun without a license to John Romano.

Romano has a conviction for burglary on his record and is therefore barred him from legally owning firearms. He is awaiting trial on felony charges of illegally possessing firearms, set to begin on Jan. 27 before Judge Kevin F. Kelly.

About the Author

Alex Rose covers court proceedings for the Daily Times. He also writes a weekly science column. Reach the author at arose@delcotimes.com
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